The Forest
by MoonlitxAngel
Summary: Everything had gone wrong for Ulrich... Fighting, loss of love, and his friends drifting apart... The forest was his only escape.. It was his sanctuary...
1. The Forest

_**The Forest**_

__Ulrich sat against a tree in the forest and looked up at the dull, gray sky… It was a beautiful night to be out, just after eight thirty and it wasn't too cold or too hot… It was the perfect time for him to just sit and think… To sit and think and dream… Dream about whatever because he knew it wouldn't last… In the forest he was alone and secluded… He needn't worry about what others thought about him… Or that Yumi was still trying to win him back… He needn't worry about Xana's end or the fact that Jeremie seemed to be falling away from them, to his own world and leaving the rest of them behind…

The forest was his sanctuary… A place that he could go and no one would bother him… A place where the leafy contents inside would cover him when he wanted to remain hidden… A place that he and Odd could be themselves and not have to worry about the word 'fags' written across their door every other week… Where they needn't worry about the girls fawning over the two and trying to split them apart…

Rumors… Nasty rumors they were… There'd been a time when the two had believed them… Now, they were a part of everyday life… Everyone had talked about the couple and they were the talk of the school for the past few months… Ulrich, their soccer hero, was gay. Odd, the womanizer, was gay… No one could believe it and everyone was out to prove it false…

The two had begged to be allowed to stay in a room together… They promised they wouldn't do anything inappropriate… They'd almost broken that promise a few times, but it's not really broken if no one ever finds out…

The forest encircled the brunette and calmed him… It always had that affect on him… He always felt like it was a mother, holding him in its tight embrace… Telling him that everything would get better and that he wouldn't have to worry any longer…

The worry had started recently when Sissi had come onto Odd and he'd just ignored her… Later Ulrich had seen him with her… They were whispering and laughing about something… something… He'd find them like that a lot… Odd and Sissi, who knew? He hadn't ever formally broke up with Ulrich, but in his heart he knew that the blonde just wasn't fully in it any longer…

He'd tried to get over Odd… Odd had left him in a heartless manner and hadn't even explained why… The thought brought tears to the boy's eyes as he stood up and slowly walked on the soft earth, through the trees, through the shrubbery, to his and Odd's favorite spot… It had been deemed their spot…

Nothing fit into place any more… He felt like what Odd and him had had was gone with the wind… Like a leaf being carried away by the wind's breath… Odd had left him for Sissi and then Sissi for Sam and then went back to Sissi when Sam left again… Was Ulrich just part of that game of his?

Ulrich sat down again, not ready to venture further into the clearing… The sun was rising behind him, but he didn't care… It didn't matter… Nothing matter any longer…

The forest had always been his refuge in those days… The trees listened and he'd talk with them… Tell them everything that he couldn't bring himself to tell anyone else… He'd tell them his deep love for the blonde that he still shared a room with… How he used to go into Odd's bed and cuddle him during the nights… How they used to do everything together, per Odd's demands… He'd ripped his heart out…

He stood and nearly fell over. When he looked behind him the forest was burning. The flames licked the trees in their desperate climb to the skies and Ulrich was trapped… He was suffocating and no one was there to save him… It was times like these that the brunette thought he was dreaming… The fire had appeared out of nowhere…

He made his way to the middle of the clearing and sat down. He knew that it was over… Rage filled his body… He could feel it rushing through his veins… Odd had left him… Yumi wanted him back… Jeremie didn't talk to anyone except for teachers… Aelita was busy with her music… He'd been left alone to fend for himself and they were to blame…

As the flames grew closer his vision began to blur and he was falling down a hole… Into darkness… It was all around him, pulling at him, trying to get a hold of him…

His sanctuary was gone… He'd never recover, he knew… He knew that nothing would make him recover. No drugs. No medicine. No apologies or kind words… Nothing would make any of this better… Nothing…

The darkness sucked him in… He was covered in the blackness that surrounded him… Life was about to end for him and he knew it…

-Break-

"Please Johan… Don't do this…" A woman begged her husband as they stood in the hospital's waiting area.

"I'm sorry… We can't keep him here, waiting and hoping that he recovers… He's been in a coma for almost a year, honey… It's time to let our little boy go…" the man, Johan, told her. He hugged her tightly and looked back at his son's friends… He'd asked them to come… To say their good-byes…

The group walked to the boy's room… His father entered and sat at his bedside…

"Ulrich, we can't keep you alive any longer… It's been a year and you still haven't woken… Your mother won't move on and she can't till your officially dead or you wake up… She misses you too much, son… We all do…" Johan told his son, taking Ulrich's hand in his. "Everything is safe out here… The storm has passed and the house is alright…"

After awhile he let his wife and then each of his son's friends in…

Odd sat at Ulrich's bedside and wept… "I never should have left you… I was afraid, though, Ulrich… I was afraid for our safety… They were planning to try and get rid of us…"

When Yumi came into the room all she could do was cry… That was all she had left… She'd come everyday that she could and kept him up-to-date on everything that was going on… Everyone at school had signed a 'Get Well Soon' card and set apology letters for the boy…

Aelita and Jeremie entered the room together, hand in hand… Neither of them could stand to be alone… They asked Ulrich to please wake up…

After everyone had said their piece the doctor allowed them all to stay in the room as they took the boy off life support… This was the end of the line for young boy and the doctor couldn't help but feel sad…

-Break-

The darkness dissipated and he was standing in the forest clearing again… He'd heard their voices calling him… The morning sun was winking at him through the moving leaves and he knew he had to make a choice… He had to choose to live or die… It was his choice and from the sounds coming from the clear, blue sky he only had seconds left…

He decided to delve into the world again… He could speak to them all again… He could win Odd back… He could… All he had to do was open his heavy eyelids…

For the first time since coming to his forest he could feel his body… His body was there… His body was there! He could hear the doctor speaking quietly to his parents… He could hear his friends' muffled sobs as they all waited for his heartbeat to flat line like it should have when they cut life support, but his eyes fluttered open…

The light blinded him and he squinted, moving his arm that wasn't hooked to an IV to shield his sensitive eyes from the blinding light…

"Ulrich!" he heard his friends shout in unison and his mother and father stop whispering.

Seconds later he was bombarded with hugs, kissing, kind words, and 'we missed yous'…

He was alive again and he was going to enjoy every minute of it… He would get Odd back… He'd get Jeremie out of his funk, granted the genius was still in it… He'd help Aelita win over Jeremie and get him away from the computers…

Odd sobbed into Ulrich's blankets and whispered, "I'm so sorry…"

(*)(*)(*)(*) Months Later (*)(*)(*)(*)

Ulrich had done physical therapy in leaps and bounds… He'd pushed himself so that he could see Yumi's graduation… By the time it had gotten to be three days away he'd recovered completely and was released from the hospital…

Him and Odd were officially a couple and Yumi was dating this nice Japanese man… He didn't mind her friends, either. A bonus…

Sometimes in his dreams he'd still visit his comforting forest… He feared sometimes that he wouldn't wake up, but his sanctuary was important… It was a beautiful place that had brought him back home… Back to Odd… Back to his mother and father… Back to everything that life had to offer…

_**A/N: That didn't even take me an hour… o.o I'm surprised at myself… XD I sat here around three fourty-five and wondered what I could do till four. Then I pulled up the word document and start typing… In the beginning as I typed this I thought that Ulrich was dead and was walking around his old favorite place and that his grave was in the forest. I was wrong… I did make up the reason why he was in the coma, which is kind of hinted at. If you guys want me to try and type that up I will. =3 Just let me know. XD**_

_** Read and review!**_

_**~MoonlitxAngel**_


	2. The Nightmare

_**The Nightmare**_

___Ulrich laid on his bed and looked up at the ceiling… He'd seen Odd again with Sissi today and that was the last straw… He'd hung around Sissi and Sam way too much and tomorrow would be the day that he finally told Odd that they were through. Officially. It wasn't fair to keep causing himself this pain…_

_ He looked up out the window and saw the rain splattering against the cool glass. Outside was projecting how he felt, but he knew that it wouldn't for long…_

…

Odd watched Ulrich turn over to his other side and saw his hand clenching the blanket tightly… Whatever he was dreaming about was scaring him…

…

_ Ulrich sat up as an area below the window began to smoke. He moved things around to try and see what was causing this and noticed a small fire forming near the bottom of the window, a small hole where something had been fit through…_

_ The fire quickly began to engulf the desk near it and Ulrich backed up against the door. He pulled at the doorknob. Someone had locked it from the outside and the door was refusing to unlock. Someone had broken the lock, trapping him inside the room._

_ "Help!" he shouted, pounding on the wooden door as he heard the fire alarm start to go off. Whatever kind of fire this was, it wasn't responding to the water falling from the sprinkler in the ceiling. "Help!" he tried again._

_ Behind the door he heard shouting and screaming. It was kind of late, so some kids most have been woken up and were afraid. He heard hordes of people pass his door, but no one stopped. It seemed like they couldn't hear his screaming._

_ "Help! I'm trapped in here! The door won't open! Help!" he shouted louder._

_ Finally someone stopped to open the door, but Ulrich didn't see who. He rushed out of the room and down the hallway as the fire engulfed his room. He saw a few other rooms that had been set on fire and he realized something. All the separate rooms held someone that was gay in them. He ran harder and faster, trying to get out of the now nearly engulfed hallway. Whatever this fire was, it was fast. It didn't respond to the sprinklers so Ulrich was soaked and the floor was really slippery._

…

Odd knew that the dream was seriously bugging Ulrich… His eyes were screwed shut, tears were falling, he'd been tossing and turning… He kept whispering incomprehensible words…

He wanted to wake Ulrich so badly, but he held himself back… If Ulrich needed him he'd ask for him…

…

_ He was still on the second floor and had found a room that wasn't burning yet that had a decent window he could jump through. It was one of the rooms that was still left untouched by the fiery hand…_

_ He heard sirens as he neared the window. The firefighters were here and they'd be able to help him down._

_ He put all his arm strength into opening the window when someone came behind him and shoved him out the window, running away quickly and leaving the burning building._

_ Ulrich didn't have time to cover his face and smashed through the glass window and fell to the ground. His back caught the impact, but his head jerked back due to the momentum and he cried out in pain._

_ His vision blurred and he barely picked out his friends in the group of students standing a ways off to one side of the school building._

_ He heard Odd's and Yumi's screams followed by Aelita's. He could hear them, but he couldn't… Darkness was enveloping him…_

_ Odd… He might never get to see him again… If his head pain was this bad then his head must have hit hard… It hurt… What if he died… Odd… Yumi…_

_ "Ulrich!" he heard someone shout._

_ "Ulrich, get up!" the shouting voice demanded. He could feel someone shaking him._

…

Ulrich shot forward, sitting up. He felt the cool tears on his face…

"You were having a nightmare…" Odd whispered beside him, hugging Ulrich.

"I'm scared, Odd…" he whispered, leaning into Odd and letting the tears fall. He knew the person that had started the fire and pushed him out the window had done it on purpose… "They set Jeremie's room on fire, too… Didn't they…?"

Odd nodded and hugged Ulrich tighter. He knew what Ulrich was getting at…

"It was to get rid of us… They hate us…"

"The person that did it was caught… They ended up in jail… I don't remember who it was, but that's not important… Delmas cracked down after he found out that it was a hate crime… Sometimes I wish I was in a coma just so I didn't have to listen to all the speeches and lectures and all that stuff… He told everyone he wasn't joking… Any repeats or things like it and he'd call the cops and make sure that they were sentenced to the biggest thing they could be… Haven't you noticed? No one has written 'fag' on our door… No one has tried to tear us apart… Nothing."

Ulrich looked up at Odd. "Thanks…"

"I didn't do anything…"

"You stopped being afraid… You're here with me right now, laying in my bed, and comforting me…"

"It's what I do."

_**A/N: Well, I felt like I really needed to do this. I really want to make some sort of difference, I guess. Stuff like what happened in this DOES happen. People end up dead, innocent people, because someone doesn't like the fact that this or that person isn't straight. Do remember, dear readers/fans, I'm not posting a story this week and will be focusing on a few one-shots I want to get done. X3 I might end up posting the new story Wednesday or Thursday. XD Maybe. XD**_

_** Read and review!**_

_**~MoonlitxAngel**_


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